Mike McCarthy Press Conf. Transcript - Oct. 14

(Is Aaron fully cleared at this point?)Aaron Rodgers was limited today at practice, and he’ll be evaluated by the medical staff. But as far as his availability for the game, it will really still come down to the medical staff fully clearing him. He was limited today and we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.

(Was this part of the protocol?) The protocol as far as all the testing and so forth from the medical staff and the off-campus doctor has been completed. But it’s like anything. There may be potentially a setback or something. That’s why we limited him today at practice.

(What were your impressions of what you saw today?) Of Aaron Rodgers? I thought Aaron practiced well today. He threw the ball well. Our practice schedule was cut back, so the number of team reps and seven-on-seven reps were cut back, just more from an overall team concern, just for the health of our team. But I thought he practiced well.

(Did Chillar have a setback?) Brandon did not come out of yesterday’s practice the way I’m sure we all would have liked. But he feels like he’s making progress, and we’ll see how he is tomorrow. He practiced yesterday, and this morning he did not feel like he was moving forward.

(What happened to Mike Neal?) Mike had a sore shoulder coming out of the game, didn’t think much of it, and went out and practiced yesterday, and when he came in this morning he was struggling. He’s been evaluated, and actually there’s going to be some testing and some rehab that was done this afternoon. I should know more about Mike in the morning.

(Are you optimistic about Donald Lee?) I’m optimistic based on what I saw on the field. He went out there and practiced, and that was a nice surprise. That was one player that was going in the right direction. It was good to see that. But as always, we’ll see how he is tomorrow.

(When you analyzed the problems on third down the other day, did it come down to execution or what were the issues?) Well, anytime you evaluate performance, you look at the play and obviously what the opponent does. We’re not executing on third down the way that we have in the past. We’re not playing to our standard. I thought the pass protection, particularly early, and even in the fourth quarter, was very good. But we’re not executing at the level that we’re definitely capable of. We spent a little more time on it this week, and we’ll hit it again tomorrow, and I’m confident that we’ll be better as we move into the future here.

(What is your level of concern with the defensive line with the injuries?) It’s where we are as a football team. We’re planning for all of our different combinations of personnel groups, both on offense, defense. Really the biggest challenge has been on special teams. We’ll work our way through it. Still have a couple more days.

(Just so I understand Aaron’s situation correctly, he’s been cleared by the team doctors?) Aaron has gone through the protocol of all of the medical testing that’s involved. We would not have put him on the field today if he did not pass that. The conversation I had with Dr. John Gray, we’re going to watch him closely, just like we always do, and I’m sure he’s in the training room right now just to see how he came out of practice. But he felt fine and I communicated with him during the course of the practice. But it’s Thursday. I’ve never made any decisions on injured players coming back on Thursday.

(Greg Jennings said he had an outburst during the game on the sidelines. Some people said he voiced his frustration. Do you know what happened, and do you have a problem with it?) I do not know about any outburst, and just talking with the coaches and his particular coach, Jimmy Robinson, there wasn’t anything that I’m aware of. I talk to Greg quite often, and I’m sure he’s in the same boat that we’re all in. We’d like to be more productive on offense to this point. We’ve played five games and we’re taking all the things that we’ve done well, and we want to continue to do those things, and things that we know we haven’t done the way we’re capable of doing them, we’ll continue to work. I know our wide receiver group is excited about playing on Sunday. They felt when we have an opportunity to throw the ball 44 times, we left some productivity on the field last week. So it’s an experience we can learn from, and that’s really the way we’ve talked about it and the way we view it.

(Usually you wait until the end of the year before you don’t go in pads. Was it just because of the injury situation?) Clearly. I’m a big believer in staying in pads throughout the year, especially in Thursday’s practices. But all these adjustments we’ve made to our schedule are clearly from a medical perspective. Just trying to be smart with the football team. I don’t think it would have been good judgment of mine to be in pads this week.

(Did Flynn go back to his regular reps in practice today, or are you still getting him some more reps?) Aaron Rodgers was limited, so Matt took more reps than he normally would today, yes.